Ahh, it feels good to tell you about data leading us up to the personalized medicine revolution. We must not take our eyes off the prize here. Party tricks with an algorithm not validated is NOT personalized medicine. But the results of this study once further replicated could be. Imagine reflex testing for RAD51 SNPs after you have the BRCA results. This could put the decision process into a less ambiguous path.

One reason is that scientists do not yet know exactly how the genetic variations they can identify cause disease, so the information provided may prove inconclusive or even misleading. Another problem is to do with regulation. Keen to avoid the scrutiny of the Food and Drug Administration, which does not yet have a role in overseeing this fledgling industry, all the firms are careful to emphasise that they are not providing medical diagnostics services—though they are plainly providing information that customers will use to assess medical risks.

Students in Purdue University’s Department of Computer and Information Technology are working to develop an information-management tool that could give pharmacists instant access to patients’ genetic profile, making it possible to quickly determine the proper medicine dosage or if the drug cannot be tolerated by the patient.

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